It is impossible nowadays to accept the optimistic estimate of Bishop Stubbs in his Constitutional History (ed. 1878,III, 370). He writes: “The existence of a clerical element in every class of society, and in so large proportion, must in some respects have been a great social benefit. Every one admitted even to minor orders must have been able to read and write; and for the subdiaconate and higher grades a knowledge of the New Testament, or, at the very least, of the Gospels and Epistles in the Missal was requisite. This was tested by careful examination in grammar and ritual at every step; even a bishop might be rejected by the archbishop for literary deficiency; and the bishop who willingly ordained an ignorant person was deemed guilty of deadly sin.” The fact that so great a man as Stubbs could write thus is, in itself, one of the most painful testimonies to the neglect of our immense stores of ecclesiastical records. Stubbs, no doubt, knew the cases quoted by Giraldus Cambrensis, but felt justified in ignoring them as the mere exaggerations of a satirist. The study of the registers had not advanced far enough to make him realize that even Giraldus's testimony is outdone by the most cold-blooded ecclesiastical documents.

Dr Rashdall, with the advantage of a whole later generation of study, wrote very differently in answer to Newman's rosy and regretful picture.